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What Platforms Should You Use? (Part One)

Twitter:

Pros:

Twitter is a microblogging platform where all users are limited to 140 characters, which means that using attention grabbing titles on Twitter is a must and using one is very beneficial to the amount of clicks you can get on a link.

Twitter is great for raising brand awareness as it’s not too hard to gain some good organic growth as it’s a platform that is very focused on sharing (Retweeting) other user’s content.

Twitter lists are a very useful feature which allows users to group together other Twitter accounts into sections such as we have one for Graphic Design news and they’re very convenient as you can sort through specific content very easily. It also allows other users to subscribe to your lists unless you want to hide them from others and put them on private.

Twitter is also very useful for self promotion but this needs to go hand in hand with promoting others because if you’re not sharing another user’s content, other users will most likely not share yours.

Twitter is an incredible platform for interacting with your customers/followers/fans. You can tweet them directly and you can even help them by sharing and favouriting their content and it’s always great to give back.

Cons:

Twitter is extremely busy, your tweet can get lost in a matter of minutes amongst everything else. It is very important that when you do tweet, you give the tweet an attention grabbing headline that people will want to click and include a bright and eye catching image just to help to get your tweet seen.

Unlike other platforms it’s hard to share links that allow you to include pictures from the website in the link. A brilliant solution for this is to use Twitshot which automatically takes a picture from the page and includes it in your tweet.

The 140 character limit can be a problem for some. If you find it difficult to think of short and snappy sentences, it might be a challenge to fit what you want to say in this short amount of space.

It can take a lot of time and effort into understanding how to use Twitter correctly for business. From times you should post, frequency of posts, retweeting, content you post and so on, it’s a platform that requires trial and error before you can find a balance.

One of the main problems with Twitter is your feeds and messages can become full of spam as it’s very easy to tweet a lot of self promotion and send direct messages that are automated which can become annoying.

On a whole:

We think Twitter is a brilliant platform to use and we say that every business should take advantage of it. It’s great for communicating with others and encourages sharing your content and another user’s content too. There are a few drawbacks, but most of these can be overcome easily by getting to know the platform and understanding how to use it correctly. Once you do that, you shouldn’t have any problems with Twitter and it can help your company raise its brand awareness very easily.

Facebook:

Pros:

Facebook allows company pages to create a call to action button that is inserted next to the share button. Call to action buttons work very well as they help direct people to where you want them to go and the fact that Facebook has one built it in very beneficial for driving traffic to your website.

Facebook insights is an incredibly detailed system. It shows you exactly how well each post has done, analytics for people you’ve reached with your posts and for people who have liked your page. It tells you how many visits you’ve had, let’s you watch your competition and even tells you when your fans are online! Insights is a great tool for measuring how your business is doing on social media.

As Facebook has a massive user base it opens a lot of doors for your company. The amount of users on Facebook is staggering and now that they are working on Facebook for work, it will even add a professional side to Facebook which will be even more advantageous for your business.

If you are willing to pay to promote your business or posts, Facebook offers you a great chance to do just that. You can select how much you want to pay and it lets you know how long it will be promoted for and how many people you’re expected to reach. It also lets you select your own targeted audience which makes it all the more useful.

It allows people to communicate with your company with great ease. Once a follower/customer or fan has communicated with your company page it is incredibly easy for you to send a reply back. It is a great platform for providing customer support quickly and effectively.

Cons:

Facebook has reduced the amount of organic reach a company page can get by a significant amount and without paying for reach you can’t reach that many people and on top of that all of your fans won’t be able to see some posts.

Again with most social media platforms, Facebook is very time consuming. It can take a lot of hard work trying to find out the right times to post, the frequency you should be posting, should you use videos or images and so on. It is a lengthy process, but once you have done some trial and error you will find a balance in between.

Facebook doesn’t come across as a professional platform and because of that if you have a company that needs to focus on the serious side and not the casual side then it’s very important that you do stick to that across all your social media platforms, but on Facebook it can put you at a slight disadvantage as it’s designed to be a casual platform, but it’s not impossible if you’re creative. As Facebook For Work may arrive soon, that could all change, but only time will tell.

It doesn’t allow you to direct message users unless they message you first. Which is good in one respect as users can’t be spammed with company offers, but that also prevents genuine networking potential for those who wouldn’t abuse it. Again though, Facebook At Work may allow this in some way.

Although Facebook dislike over promotional things, they sure do enjoy bomboarding company pages with promote this, promote that, expand your reach, boost post and so on. It can get in the way sometimes, but it is not a major issue.

On a whole:

Facebook has a massive user database and you can edit all sorts of options on your Facebook company page to make your page look professional and taken care of. It allows all kinds of posts and as users can do a wide range of things on Facebook, it’s a great place for your business to be. Unfortunately as Facebook has clamped down on organic growth a lot of businesses have quit Facebook as they simply don’t think it’s worth the time. But Facebook At Work may change the outlook for businesses. If you would be willing to promote your page and posts you could probably gain a significant amount of reach which would benefit your page, but if you’re not willing you will probably not achieve a great deal of reach.

We hope part one has helped you understand a little more about these two platforms or maybe it’s helped jog your memory on a point that you may have forgot about. They are both brilliant to use for any business looking to raise brand awareness and interacting with your customers/followers and fans is very easy. In part two we will be looking at LinkedIn and Instagram so stay tuned!

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